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Robert Clark letter to Arvine Wales, March 12, 1872

Page 1

D-325-1
[page 1]
Cincinnati, March 12 1872
Hon. Arvine C. Wales
Columbus
My dear Sir: I see that you are Chairman of the Committee on Common
Schools in the Senate and I want to write you a few lines in the interest of colored
children. I presume they are deprived of their rights in many sections of the
state, as they are in the Special School District in which I reside, the Village of
Glendale, We have always had a few colored children but never till three years
ago, could we muster at enrollment the requisite number of 20 to have a
separate school. So up to that time they received no attention what ever, &
even there it needed my own constant effort to get them our apology for a
school, but at last, a miserable room in the Village ice house, was rented
and into this was put a lot of broken and used up benches etc from the
cellar of the other school house, and a teacher was hired for them. Next
year the requisite number was again enumerated, and a respect-
able lady teacher(white)employed, and the school continued in
the same place with the same discomforts. Not a trustee ever entered
the room. Last year, one family having moved away, the number
of children enrolled was only 17, a grand excuse for the gentlemen
Trustees to discontinue the school. The same lady teacher, Miss

D-325-1
[page 1]
Cincinnati, March 12 1872
Hon. Arvine C. Wales
Columbus
My dear Sir: I see that you are Chairman of the Committee on Common
Schools in the Senate and I want to write you a few lines in the interest of colored
children. I presume they are deprived of their rights in many sections of the
state, as they are in the Special School District in which I reside, the Village of
Glendale, We have always had a few colored children but never till three years
ago, could we muster at enrollment the requisite number of 20 to have a
separate school. So up to that time they received no attention what ever, &
even there it needed my own constant effort to get them our apology for a
school, but at last, a miserable room in the Village ice house, was rented
and into this was put a lot of broken and used up benches etc from the
cellar of the other school house, and a teacher was hired for them. Next
year the requisite number was again enumerated, and a respect-
able lady teacher(white)employed, and the school continued in
the same place with the same discomforts. Not a trustee ever entered
the room. Last year, one family having moved away, the number
of children enrolled was only 17, a grand excuse for the gentlemen
Trustees to discontinue the school. The same lady teacher, Miss